Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Off to Hamster Heaven

Having moved on...

How would an obituary go for a hamster?It would probably say something about living to a ripe old age of 2. There would be mention of having raised 11 babies and how she outlived at least 5 of them. Perhaps a paragraph of the activities she enjoyed: running around in her hamster ball, stuffing her cheeks full of goodies, and being a master escape artist.

Hamster #1, Rocko, from 3 years ago was only around for a month before he died. He wasn't very friendly and had a tendency to bite so we weren't too attached to him. Rocko's burial location was the garbage can.

Now Mother Bear we had for nearly 2 years and she was such a good hamster the entire time. We thought she deserved a better resting place. In trying to decide where to bury her I suggested the back yard. Jeff vetoed it on the grounds that I move around plants way too much...something about how he didn't want to be digging up Mother Bear later on this summer when the hostas moved to a new location.

Well, we went on a drive and found a nice mountain location and buried her. There probably is a law about not dumping dead animals in the mountains. But this wasn't a 60 lb. dog or a horse, it was a hamster. Claire decorated the grave with flowers while Erik inspected a jaw bone from a deer who had been long dead. I'm thinking that if a big smelly deer can die and rot away in the mountains becoming part of natures cycle, then burying an itty bitty hamster shouldn't be a big deal (just this once).

Erik and Claire are already talking about saving up their money to buy another hamster which is fine. So we will see, I hope we get one more like Mother Bear and less like Rocko.